What were Swahili city-states?

What were Swahili city-states?

Swahili City-States During the 10th century, several city-states flourished along the Swahili Coast and adjacent islands, including Kilwa, Malindi, Gedi, Pate, Comoros, and Zanzibar. These early Swahili city-states were Muslim, cosmopolitan, and politically independent of one another.

What was the role of Swahili city-states in Indian Ocean trade?

During that time, the Swahili Coast comprised numerous city-states that traded across the Indian Ocean. The city-states were independent sultanates, although they shared a common language (Swahili) and religion (Islam). They traded across the Indian Ocean for items, such as pottery, silks, and glassware.

What were the major Swahili city-states known for?

From roughly 1000-1500 CE, the extensive maritime trade that connected China to the Red Sea was dominated by the Swahili city-states, trading cities along Africa’s east coast. These trading cities operated as their own governments and traded in practically every product that could be found between Africa and Asia.

What are the three major Swahili city-states?

Swahili is the name of their language and means ‘people of the coast. ‘ The coast blossomed into a number of important, independent trading cities which included Mombasa, Mogadishu, and Zanzibar.

What was the Swahili civilization?

Iron Age people traded with inland Africa, East and Southern Asia, and Europe, producing what has become popularly known as the “Swahili civilization.” This civilization along the coast of Eastern Africa is marked by material culture of iron working, cloth production, pottery, beads, and glass as well as monumental …

What were two important city states in Africa?

The major autonomous, but symbiotic, city-states stretched over 1,500 miles from Mogadishu (in modern day Somalia) in the north to Sofala (in modern Mozambique) in the south and included Mombasa, Gedi, Pate, Lamu, Malindi, Zanzibar, and Kilwa. These city-states also exported natural resources.

What role did the Swahili city-states play in the economy of the 1450 1750 time period?

The Swahili city-states growth was due largely to the increase in trade along the Indian Ocean Basin. Merchants traded gold, slaves and ivory for pottery, glassware, and textiles from Persia, India and China. City-states were governed by kings, who controlled the trade, as well as the taxes.

Why was trade so important for the cities on the Swahili coast of Africa?

The shallow coast was important as it provided seafood. Starting in the early 1st millennium CE, trade was crucial. Submerged river estuaries created natural harbors as well as the yearly monsoon winds helped trade. Later in the 1st millennium there was a huge migration of Bantu people.

Why was the Swahili civilization important?

To sum up, Swahili Civilization was an important contributor and receiver of goods, people, and ideas from the 11th- to the 16th-centuries. The merchants in the Indian Ocean Trading Network helped coastal cities to grow prosperous and politically powerful. The Swahili language was also important in uniting people.

What was the main cause of the development of Swahili culture?

Answer: trade with the interior of East Africa. Mainly it developed as a result of the native Bantu tribes that encountered the Arabs who set up trading outposts that resulted in the future development of villages and towns along the East African Coast.

What countries are in the Swahili coast?

Swahili coast
Countries Kenya Tanzania Mozambique Comoros
Major Cities Dar es Salaam (Mzizima) Malindi Mombasa Sofala Lamu Zanzibar
Ethnic groups
• Bantu Swahili

Where were the Swahili city states located?

Swahili City States were trading states along the east coast of Africa, from Kenya to Mozambique. The Swahili City States provided and connected african raw material to the rest of the Indian Ocean world–Arabia, India, Persia, China and vice-versa.

What reglion were the Swahili city states?

By their height, the Swahili city-states were distinctly Muslim; they had large mosques built of local coral stone. The Swahili, regardless of their economic status, drew a distinction between themselves as Muslims and the “uncultured,” non-Muslim Africans of the interior.

When did the Swahili states begin?

The Swahili city-states were a series of coastal cities on the eastern coast of Africa. Established by the Bantu peoples in the second century C.E., the cities grew rapidly around the tenth century, when Islamic merchants began to trade with them.